Ignorance is Bliss
by Nugar
Summary: Naruto, Sakura, Karin, and Sasuke wake up in a hotel after an epic drunken, drug fueled orgy with no memory of the past 5 years, how they got there, or who killed the hooker. Missing people, assassins, and most importantly, why are they friends again?
1. Chapter 1

There was laughing. There was booze. Lots and lots of both. Giggles, sake, chuckles, beer, hearty laughs, wine, snickers, rum, snorts and mixed drinks.

There was also fighting. The booze and laughter continued through the fight.

There were pills. There were broken glass ampules of sickly sweet smelling liquids that made everything funnier. There was more booze. There was more fighting. There were cheers. There were wails. There was kissing and fondling and more booze and powders and dusts. There were pipes of carved wood and earnest, stammered conversations followed by helpless laughter. There was indignant screaming followed by bland confessions and toasted with more booze and more fighting and more laughter.

There was more booze, more fairy dust, more kissing, and oh, oh so much pleasure.

Sakura woke up.

There was a strange muff on her forehead.

Ignorance is Bliss

By strange, of course, it was not hers, and the owner wasn't immediately someone that sprang to mind. However, it certainly seemed familiar, or, at least, it should have seemed familiar, since she was in such an intimate proximity to her. The other woman's clitorus was directly between Sakura's eyes, and her knees were on each side of Sakura's head. That implies at least a reasonably high level of mutual aqquaintanceship.

It was a tidy muff, Sakura supposed. What little her bleary eyes could focus on got back an image of dark red hair, and it didn't smell bad. Smelled like sex.

Sakura attempted to sit up, but her arms seemed pinned and asleep due to the circulation being cut off. This startled her a little, and she wiggled, waking up the girl on her forehead.

Karin pulled the rolled up high denomination bill out of her right nostril and yawned hugely pulling back from the bare female bottom sticking into the air on the footboard and sitting up straighter, stretching her arms high above her head. She was actually still wearing her glasses.

This also had the result that she rolled backwards and ended up sitting on Sakura's face.

"Mmmph!" came the startled mumble from between her legs.

"Mmm, Cherri-chan," she sighed, rocking slightly.

*bite*

"AIYAAA!" she exclaimed in a squeaky, offended voice, rising back onto her knees quickly, then rolling off to Sakura's left side, freeing Sakura's arm from beneath her leg in the process.

Sakura tried to sit up again, but her right arm was still pinned, and there was something heavy across her chest. Now, though, she could look.

Naruto lay collapsed on his side to her right, her arm beneath him and his leg across her completely bare torso. He was naked and very, very blond in the sunlight streaming in the open window, and he was still breathing in the slow rythmn of deep sleep.

She squinted at him incomprehendingly. Some effort freed her arm, pushed his leg off, and then she levered herself up and backwards. Her legs were spread and sticking into the air.

Sasuke was between them, passed out against the headboard. Though naked from the waist down just like the rest of them, he was the only one even partially dressed, wearing a shirt that said 'I'm with stupid' and had an arrow on it pointing to the side, coincidentally at where Naruto lay.

"Kai," Sakura said desperately. "Kai! Kai!"

"Oww, my head…" Karin complained sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to the sunlight. Sakura noticed that she was absolutely covered in bite marks and hickeys, some of them clearly deep enough to have drawn blood.

The scene resolutely failed to disappear.

"Who are you?" Sakura asked plaintively.

"I told you my name was Karin," the she complained. "You've forgotten already? Damn, Cherri-chan, you were wasted."

"My name is Sakura, not Cherri-chan," Sakura insisted.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"Well, 'Sakura', if that is your real name, who are you and what the hell happened last night? And why can't I remember where we are?"

"Genjutsu?" Sakura hoped.

"Kai!" Karin tried.

Nothing.

Naruto suddenly groaned and shifted, giving Sakura a really good look at his morning wood. He opened one eye and smacked his lips.

"Sakura-chan?" he asked. Then her state of undress hit him and he recoiled, hastily sliding backwards and falling off the bed with a thump. He rose to his feet almost instantly, a pillow covering his privates.

"Sakura! You're naked! Why are you naked! Why am I naked? Why is Sasuke naked? Why is Karin… Why are you even here, Karin? Where are we?" As his torrent of questions continued, each new question was said more quietly and more pathetically. He finished it up with a plaintive "Not my fault don't hit me!" and a cringe.

Sasuke slept on.

"Be quiet, Naruto," Karin hissed, waving her hand irritably. "My head hurts."

"My head hurts," Sakura admitted, laying back. She felt drained, like she had absolutely no energy at all. Other than the headache, though, she felt good. Maybe a little sore between her legs.

"Who's the girl on the foot of the bed?" Naruto asked. "And who's this guy in the corner? Is this a genjutsu? Kai! Kai!" A veritable tidal wave of chakra rolled off him, but the scene remained unchanged.

Sasuke snorted and snapped awake.

"Owwwww…" Sasuke moaned, pressing both hands over his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall.

"Why is there hair in my mouth?" Naruto asked, trying not to notice the color in case it scared the hell out of him. "What's this white powder on the table?"

"Naruto, stop asking questions," Sakura said desperately.

"Naruto," Sasuke said.

Naruto looked at him.

"Naruto. Naaruuutoooo." Sasuke's eyes snapped open and he tried to spring to his feet, but between the hangover, residual high, and Sakura's legs still being on top of his thighs, he managed nothing but a kind of lunge in the other direction, also falling off the bed.

"Ow," he complained from the floor, staying there.

"Woohoo, healing factor beats the hangover yet again," Naruto cheered quietly, the only one in the room even somewhat functional.

Sakura felt so incredibly lazy. Like it was too much effort to think about what she was doing or what was happening around her. On some level she recognized that as an effect of a number of powerful sedative drugs, but such was their effect that she didn't actually care. She turned her head slightly to the side where Karin was still hunched over on the side of the bed.

A pair of sharingan eyes stared back at her. She blinked. They were right at the waistline of Karin's lower back.

She reached out and touched them, slowly.

Karin squeaked and shifted when Sakura's finger prodded her sharply. "Cherri, what the hell?"

"Sakura," she corrected. "You've got eyes tattooed on your lower back."

"I have a tramp stamp? Since when?" Karin mumbled, trying to crane her head around and look. She caught a better look at Sakura when she did. "Umm, you've got a little something…" she said hesitantly, motioning at her neck.

Sakura pawed at her neck in response, still laying on her back. She found it pretty quickly, and held it up to see what it was.

A used orange condom dangled from her fingers. She stared. A glob of thick clear fluid dripped out the end and fell on her face.

Okay, that was enough. She rolled over and sat up, wiping at her face in disgust.

"It's in my mouth, it's in my mouth, pbbbbbfffft! Pbbbbfffttt!" she complained.

Naruto, on the other hand, went over to the guy passed out in the corner and nudged him with his foot. "Hey, wake up. Who are you and what happened here?"

He wasn't anyone any of them recognized, being around twice their age and bearded, with an abused beret on his head and an extremely rumpled uniform of some sort on. He snorted, roused a bit, and looked at Naruto.

"You look like hell, dude," Naruto informed him seriously.

He coughed out a partially burned cigarrette into his hand. Then, heedless of the damp slime covering it, he lit it with a lighter produced from a pocket and took a drag.

"Mmaasgrarg," he mumbled indistinctly, and levered himself to his feet.

Naruto blinked and stepped back.

The man waved vaguely and slowly staggered out of the room. "G'ta g't t' work," he said by way of farewell.

"Naruto has a tramp stamp too?"

Naruto turned at Karin's comment. "What? I have a what?"

"It's a bunch of fox tails right above your ass," Sakura explained helpfully.

Naruto groaned. "Oh, that's tasteful. I thought only women got tramp stamps."

"I still remember sexy no jutsu, why don't you?" Sasuke asked from the floor.

"Last thing I remember, Sakura and I were helping rebuild the village after Pain attacked, and I did not have a tattoo on my ass at the time." He walked over to the strange woman bent over the foot of the bed and poked her dubiously. "I have no idea how we somehow ended up having an orgy with a dead hooker."

"She's dead?" Sakura asked, too shocked to muster real horror.

"She's a hooker?" Karin asked.

"Yeah, she's got a collar around her neck that says 'Property of Madame Choo', and she ain't breathing. I don't know what the white powder on her is, though."

Karin, who'd woken up face down in said powder with a tube in her nose, didn't comment.

Naruto poked the corpse with one finger in a contemplative sort of manner, then stepped back. "I take no responsibility for actions I can't remember," he announced in complete seriousness.

"Same," Sasuke agreed immediately.

"Easy for you to say, but what if one of us ends up pregnant?" Sakura snapped. "Who's gonna take responsibility then, huh?"

"Well, I'd say we at least used condoms," Naruto replied. "You've got a…" He blushed furiously.

Sakura looked down at her crotch. For one thing, she had a pair of cherries tattooed beside a small, neatly trimmed patch of pubic hair in the shape of a heart. For another, something blue was between her legs. She pulled it out, and it was another used condom, this time blue.

"I feel like I'm going to throw up," she said faintly.

Naruto quickly handed her a trashcan from beside the bed, and she retched into it noisily.

Karin turned positively green at the sound and rushed into the bathroom. They heard the toilet flushing soon after.

"Do you know what this means?" Naruto asked. "We must have had the most incredible party in history!"

"And we can't remember any of it? Or even why we got together and didn't try to kill each other?" Sasuke said angrily, still on the floor and irritated because of his headache. "The last thing I remember was joining Akatsuki!"

"You joined Akatsuki?" Sakura said in horror. "And that's why you didn't come home after defeating Itachi?"

"Man, this party must have been REALLY awesome," Naruto said, torn between amazment and pride.

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Sasuke felt nauseous. It was hard to think, and his body felt like it was about fifty feet tall and made of lead, but as long as he lay on the floor very quietly his gorge didn't rise. He realized that meant in his current condition he was supremely vulnerable to attack, and that bothered him on a deep and personal level, but at the same time, the only other person in the room who seemed capable of such an attack was Naruto, and Naruto was remarking on a Leaf symbol drawn in white powder on a small table beneath the window and hunting for clothes. The blond also made some sort of inane comment about not recognizing the city they were in.

The phone rang, startling them all.

Naruto picked it up. "Um, hello?" he asked dubiously.

"Oh, Naruto-sama!" the voice said happily. "I'm glad I caught you! We have your customary delivery ready, but I'm afraid there's a problem. We really must ask that you return our delivery boys for us to continue to provide you with the service I'm sure you've come to expect." He sounded positively regretful that he would have to ask for something so trivial.

"Who is this?" Naruto asked.

"Oh, my apologies, Naruto-sama! I'm sure you must have a lot of business going on right now, how remiss of me to not state my name at the beginning! This is Supervisor Barang down at the Golden Imports warehouse, we've got your order of liquor ready for delivery. Some very fine selections, as befitting a man of your tastes, Sir. We just need our delivery boys returned and we'll get them right out to you!"

"Right. I'll see if I can find them."

"Oh, thank you, Sir! And may you have a wonderful day!"

Naruto hung up with a click and turned to the others. "That was some guy claiming we've got a booze shipment ready, but apparently we kept their delivery boys."

"Dobe, we don't need any more booze," Sasuke complained, feeling sick at the very thought. "You should have canceled the delivery."

"We don't need to act out of character, either," Naruto replied. "What if we're on a mission? Or we have enemies?"

There was a long moment of silence.

"This has to be a genjutsu," Sasuke muttered to himself. "Naruto isn't an idiot. Kai! Kai!"

"Hah hah," Naruto deadpanned. "I'm gonna see if I can find pants or delivery boys or some clue as to what's going on."

He opened the door to the bedroom, peeked around outside, then stepped out.

The next room turned out to be a huge, palatial sitting room, with expensive furniture and a large TV, fancy paintings on the wall, potted plants, lovely woven rugs over decorative tile, and piles and piles of debris. There was a young man passed out on the couch, his pants and underwear around his ankles and a wide smile on his sleeping face. He decided to deal with that in a few minutes.

Empty sake, wine, whiskey, and beer bottles littered the floor and about half the available surfaces. Clothes and, somewhat shockingly, used condoms littered everywhere else. He was perversely pleased that clearly more than half of them were orange. He liked orange. It was an awesome color.

Nearly all the female clothes were ripped to shreds (awesome!), but he found a pair of dark grey pants that beat being naked and quickly slipped into them. A snore from behind the couch brought his attention to an overlooked area where another young man lay, partially covered by empty bottles.

A room close to the bedroom had an absolutely enormous jaccuzzi, and there was also a large kitchen with half empty booze bottles, fruit, and various other cocktail ingredients, as well as yet another half naked young man wearing panties on his head. A dining room completed the suite, and the sole remaining exit from the living room went to an entry hall. Shoes littered the floor, and Naruto finally found what he'd been looking for.

An entire rack of expensive looking clothes, fresh from the cleaners, stood against one wall of the entryway, apparently delivered quietly sometime earlier. He grabbed the whole rack and simply bulldozed his way back to the bedroom with it.

"I found clothes!" he announced cheerfully. "You should all see this place, it's nice. Kinda trashed, though. I found the delivery boys, too, but they're still passed out. Looks like the girls did a number on a couple of them."

"The hooker did it," Karin replied immediately to deny a rapidly forming mental image of herself as a slut.

"The dead one?"

"Yeah."

"Fair enough," Naruto agreed. No point arguing about it.

Karin had already gotten an extremely quick shower while she was in the bathroom, quick both because she didn't think she had time for a long one and because the pressure of water on her head made her headache worse. She'd also found another used condom in a place she'd never expected a condom to end up since she had been pretty sure that the mechanics that would leave a condom in that place would hurt. Apparently she'd been enthusiastically trying a lot of new things in the period she couldn't remember. Still, she felt better for the shower and the time spent collecting herself, and she was rather pleased when Naruto showed up with clothes. There was basically no privacy, but no one seemed to care so she rooted through the two levels of hangers in her towel and quickly got dressed in tiger striped underwear and spandex short shorts, with a tight, shimmery silk blouse on top. It was hardly ninja, even compared to what she remembered as her usual outfit, but it felt good to be dressed.

Sakura was nowhere to be found, having ran for the bathroom as soon as Karin emerged. They'd heard the sound of running water since.

"What's with all those hickeys?" Naruto asked, nodding at Karin.

"Orgy?" she mused. "I think I was doing most of the drugs and you were getting them filtered through my body. Orochimaru used to use me as a way of delivering chemicals to his experiments."

"What?!"

That lead to a brief explaination of her ability to heal people who sucked on her blood and chakra.

"Oh. Oh, well that must suck," Naruto said after the explaination.

"It's not that bad, I don't mind it," she replied.

"Oh. OH." He paused awkwardly at the realization that she liked being nibbled on. "So what's the last thing you remember?" he asked, changing the subject.

She winced and glanced at Sasuke. Fortunately, he noticed.

"Go ahead. The old rules clearly do not apply."

"We uh, we'd joined Akatsuki, fought the Eight tails jinchuriki, and just found out that all we caught was a clone and he'd gotten away." She sounded kinda embarrassed by it, talking to the man she knew as the Nine tails jinchuriki.

"My memory stops at about a month after that," Sasuke noted, still on the floor, since there was no compelling reason to move and he was in a nice patch of shadow thrown by the bed. "And yes, that was not too long after you killed Pain, Naruto."

"That doesn't make any sense," Naruto complained. "Look at us. I'm at least ten cm taller, Sakura went up like a whole cup size, and we're in a strange city. I don't care how much we partied, there's no reason for us to forget an entire year, probably more. Something is wrong here, more so than just us all waking up together after, you know, doing this and that all night."

"When did you stop being an idiot, Naruto?" Sasuke asked.

"What? You thought I was gonna be one forever?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"And I didn't kill Pain," Naruto replied testily. "Everyone kept saying that, but he wasn't that bad of a guy, just misguided. He sacrificed himself to bring everyone he'd killed in Konoha back to life."

Sasuke stared up at him from the floor. "How in the hell do you keep doing that? The redemption thing?"

"I dunno, but apparently I finally managed to do it to you," Naruto replied, brightening considerably. "There's no way I'd party with a member of Akatsuki who was out to kill me."

"We're not in Konoha."

Naruto deflated, then brightened again. "No, but we might have stopped there. Hey, yeah, maybe this is like some big celebratory vacation! We finally got you to pull your head out of your ass and now we're just wandering around having a good time!"

"I will provide a devastating counterargument to prove you're an overly optimistic fool just as soon as I can think of one," Sasuke promised.

"Well, at the very least, we seem to be friendly," Naruto continued on cheerfully. "So, truce?"

Sasuke sighed. "At least until we figure out what's going on."

"Yay! I'm friends with Sasuke again! This day is turning out to be pretty good after all!"

Karin shook her head sadly and left the bedroom to explore the place.

"AHHHHH!"

Immediately, Sasuke and Naruto were by her side, followed about two seconds later by a dripping wet Sakura. All of them were positively alight with violent, destructive chakra, ready to fight to the death at a moment's notice.

Karin babbled apology and blushed, waving her hands in the air.

"What?! What happened?" Naruto demanded.

Sasuke's sharingan spun into kalaidescope shapes as it scanned the room, and Sakura checked her for injuries.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Karin babbled. "I just saw the room, and I couldn't help it. That was my liver screaming in horror." She indicated the obscene numbers of empty liquor bottles.

Sakura's face crinkled in disgust, and then she got a good look at the room, too.

"AIIIIEEE! How are we even alive?" she gasped, her hands covering her mouth.

"We're so awesome," Naruto answered with a grin.

The young man with his pants around his ankles on the couch lifted his head and looked at them blearily. "Oh god," he mumbled. "I don't know if I can't take another one." He smiled. "I guess I'm willing to try…"

Sakura eeped and hurried her nakedness back into the bathroom, while Sasuke hunted for pants in the bedroom.

"Pull up your pants, kid," Naruto told him.

"No more, huh? Okay." He tried to cover himself, but only managed to get his pants and boxers up to around his knees before he ran out of energy.

"No, no, up, up!" Naruto insisted, yanking him to his feet and shaking him lightly. "You! You're a delivery boy, right?"

"Yeah… yeah! Oh, I'm gonna be late for work!" he said, suddenly panicked.

"Focus, kid, focus!" Naruto insisted. "Who are we?"

His head lolled around, then finally straightened. He looked Naruto in the eyes.

"Wow, you guys were really wasted last night," he said in admiration.

"Tell me something I don't already know," Naruto said with a groan.

"Please, just tell us what you know about who we are," Karin said, trying the nice girl routine.

"Uhhh. Uhh."

Naruto growled.

"Uzumaki Naruto! The strongest man in the world!" the young man said hastily.

Naruto blinked. He shook the man again, and brought his face in really close, staring at him with eyes of purest blue. "Listen to me. Listen. This may be the most important question anyone has asked you. _Who else knows this?_"

The kid gulped nervously, his toes barely touching the floor. "Um, everybody…"

Naruto abrubtly broke into a huge grin. "AWESOME! That's how it's supposed to be!"

His captive gave him a tentative smile and laughed nervously.

"And me?" Karin demanded, her fingers closing around his throat, nice girl ploy forgotten. "What about me?"

"K-squeak!-Karin!" the poor boy gasped.

"Do I have a nickname or title?" she demanded again.

"U-Uchiha-sama's b-b-bitch-" he stuttered.

"_Who else knows?_" she growled, resisting Naruto's gentle efforts to free the young man.

"Everyone!"

"Awesome! I finally landed Sasuke!"

"Well, you're one of his bitches," the delivery boy added, perhaps unwisely.

"WHAT?"

"Wild Cherry the mud wrestling queen is one, too," he explained.

"Aww, man, Sakura too?" Naruto complained, no longer feeling like saving him.

"And me, and Ju over there, and I don't see Huang…"

"Wait, wait, how many bitches does Sasuke have?" Naruto was starting to feel kinda jealous.

"Um, as of last night? He stood on the balcony out there and rather dramatically proclaimed that we were all his bitches. And then you replied that he was your bitch so all us bitches belonged to you, too, and you both argued a lot, and you both left, and there was like thirty minutes of huge explosions out at sea, and then you came back and Sasuke agreed he was your bitch and you danced a lot with the girls and humped everything that moved."

Karin blinked.

The young man leaned in and whispered in an extremely conspiratory sort of voice. "I sat really still," he said solemnly.

"Huh. Smart move."

"Thank you, Sir."

"What else do you know about us?" Naruto continued, finally prying his little informant out of Karin's gently throttling grip.

"Um, not much, Naruto-sama. You six arrived on a ship about two weeks ago and you've been living the kind of life people like me can only dream of. I don't know where you got your money or where you're from, but since you've been here you've beaten up two of the Triads, closed down six bars, rooted the corruption out of the city police force, and pantsed the Sessei in public, twice. And that was just what I heard the first week. You've been very busy."

"Six?" Karin thought rapidly. "Were the other two a pointy toothed idiot and a big but nice guy?"

He nodded. "I haven't seen them lately, though. Just you four."

"Anything else that you can tell us?"

He shrugged helplessly.

"Okay, well, thanks. You're supposed to report back to your job and bring us more booze, so we might have more questions later. And take your friends with you." Orders given, Naruto went to the kitchen to wake up the last guy.

"Huh? Wazzat?" Huang asked blearily.

"Wakey wakey!" Naruto said cheerfully, rolling him off the counter and setting him on his feet, but making sure he didn't fall. "If you're gonna party with us, you've got to get up with us. No slacking."

Huang groaned in pain.

"You need to find your pants and get them on, you're all headed back to work."

"Sir, you're wearing my pants," Huang protested.

Naruto blinked. "Oh. I thought they were kinda tight. Hold on," he said, propping him against the counter and preparing to remove them.

"No! No, please, Sir, keep the pants on this time," Huang begged hastily. "Keep them, it's an honor. I don't need pants anway, Sir."

"Are you sure?"

"Yessir!" Huang seemed panicked, bowing repeatedly as he backed out of the kitchen.

"Well, your boxers are in there somewhere…" Naruto trailed off.

"Huang!" came the cry from the other room. "You survived! You're a hell of a man, Huang!"

"Let's gooooo…"

Naruto only caught a flash of them leaving as they all hurried out the door.

He sniffed. "Lightweights." To hell with them. Naruto felt like the king of the world. This was the best morning ever.

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The first assassin came for them the moment they set foot outside the hotel room.

"Boss Chang sends his regards!" the young man screamed and charged headfirst at Naruto, his right hand brandishing a kitchen knife that he drove towards Naruto's chest.

Naruto stopped him by the simple expedient of placing a hand on his head and holding him back just out of reach. He caught the man's knife hand as he tried to swing it at Naruto's arm. Naruto raised one eyebrow incredulously.

"Was that okay, Naruto-sama?" the man asked. "Was it just like the movie? Was it just like Run Lion Run?"

Naruto blinked. "Huhmmmm yes?"

"Great! Do you want me to do it again?"

"Mmmm not now?" Naruto said in confusion.

"Wait, wait, wait," Sakura said, shielding her eyes from the bright sun and trying to fight off an incipient headache. "Naruto told you to do that?"

"Unh huh! When he hired us to kill him," the young man agreed enthusiastically. "Just like the Triad assassins that kept going after Chao in Run Lion Run."

"You hired a gang to kill you because you saw it in a movie?!" Sakura growled.

"Hey, it was an awesome movie!" Naruto said in defense, despite having no memory of the movie whatsoever.

The would be assassin nodded in agreement, and Sakura's expression darkened.

"We don't usually take contracts like that but he gave us a lot of money, and everyone knows you can't kill the Strongest Man in the World anyway. It's kinda fun." He turned back to Naruto. "It's an honor, Sir. And might I add, thank you for not breaking my face."

"No problem," Naruto said easily, letting him go. "After all, you're just doing your job, right? Better luck next time."

"Yes, Sir! Thank you, Sir! I'll try again later, Sir, but I think Qu Zi is up next." He gave them a wave and scampered off.

"We… are so awesome," Naruto said happily.

Sakura bonked him on the head.

"Hey! I thought we agreed, no responsibility for things we can't remember?" he complained, rubbing the new lump.

"That wasn't from me now, that was from the me a couple days ago to the you from a couple of days ago that did remember hiring a gang to kill you for fun. It just arrived now."

Naruto blinked and totally didn't get it, so he slid to the other side of Sasuke to get out of reach.

"You are an idiot," Sasuke told him.

Naruto looked slightly hurt.

"Hiring a gang? They never have any actually good fighters unless they contract out. Why didn't you hire someone from the government? Maybe they would have found someone worth our time."

Naruto grinned suddenly. "Hey, Sakura-chan, Sasuke thought it was a good idea."

"The fundamental theory only. Then you screwed it up."

"What's that?" Karin asked, pointing at the beach about a thousand yards down the shore.

"A sea monster," Sasuke replied, having already noticed it, stared at it, identified it, and put it out of his mind. "A hydra of some sort."

"Whoaaaaa!" Naruto exclaimed, finally noticing it. "And there's a bunch of people around it! We've got to check it out! Maybe it's a clue!" He sprinted off down the beach.

"Idiot," Sakura said with a sigh, and followed.

"Right!" Karin exclaimed, about to follow as well, then realized that Sasuke wasn't as enthusiastic, or indeed interested at all. "I mean, ah, right," she said, readjusting her glasses nervously as she held herself in check. "It could be a clue. Who else besides you two would have the power to kill something like that?"

Sasuke huffed and started walking that direction. Karin trailed after.

The sea monster, or hydra as Sasuke called it, was incredibly huge, whale sized or bigger, with a long, slender paddle tail that trailed into the ocean, four paddle like flippers, and three necks coming out of a body that towered three times the height of a man over the people standing on the beach beside it. It had once had three heads as well, but two of the necks ended in ragged stumps and the other seemed to, in Sakura's opinion, have a somewhat shocked expression permanently fixed on its reptilian features.

The whole carcass was absolutely surrounded by people, most of whom were diligently working on it with flensing knives and machetes to peel off the valuable meat by the cartload. They'd been working on it for hours but the gigantic hulk of a carcass was still mostly untouched.

Naruto and Sakura waved at Karin and Sasuke from beside an impromptu food stall that had been set up to take advantage of the ready supply of meat and the mass of workers and gawkers. The smell of spices, sizzling meat, and charcoal smoke wafted their way. Giving Sasuke a dubious look, Karin broke away from his leisurely stroll and hurried over.

Naruto pressed a skewer of roasted hydra strips into her hand and grinned.

"I told you it was a clue," he said proudly.

Whispering among the workers and gawkers spread quickly, and shortly there was a tremendous cheer from the crowd, and a surge forward to thank and congratulate the four ninja, apparently all equally, though Karin had her doubts that she deserved any praise. Naruto took the acclaim better than Sasuke, of course, who mostly glowered at everyone and looked murderous if anyone tried to touch him, but Naruto was friendly enough for all of them.

After the crowd had generally returned to their work, Naruto passed Sasuke a sea monster skewer and nibbled on his own.

"Let me guess. We killed it," Sasuke noted.

"You didn't know?" the stall operator asked incredulously, half distracted from serving other, paying customers.

"I forgot," Sasuke said in a deadpan.

"Happens more often than you'd think," Naruto added ruefully.

"We were really intoxicated," Sakura explained. She paused. "Really really."

"My liver is still screaming," Karin agreed.

"So did you see the fight?" Sakura asked cautiously. "I'd like to know if this was just an ordinary giant monster fight like we always have or something special that I should have paid more attention to."

"Huh," the man replied, bemused. "Well, no, I didn't see it directly. I heard the explosions and saw the lightning and winds, of course, we all did, but I live on the other side of the city. I think Kyoko saw it, though, she doesn't live far from here." He turned and yelled at a man hacking at blubber with an axe. "Hey! NOOKIE! Holler at Kyoko for me! Cherri-sama wants to talk to her!"

Karin nudged Sakura with an I-told-you-so look, and Sakura grimaced.

Nookie, presumably a nickname, yelled to another man on top, who in turn yelled down at someone on the other side of the tremendous beast. Within a few minutes an older woman, heavily tanned with deep wrinkles yet still fit, came walking around the carcass wiping her hands on a nasty, stained rag. Her clothes were drab and streaked with dark monster blood and giblets.

"Oh, wow!" she said. "Wild Cherri the Unstoppable wants to see me? I heard about your match with Hulking Soba. They say she's still crying!"

"I… thanks?" Sakura replied, looking confused. "Anyway, we'd like to hear about the fight that killed this sea monster from your perspective." She looked embarrassed. "You see… we were all too drunk to remember it."

"I know, right?" the woman replied happily. "Naruto-sama was amazing but he kept stopping to pee in the middle of the fight. You know, once you pop the cork you'll be peeing all night…"

Naruto chuckled and rubbed the back of his head absently.

"Now, you have to understand, I don't know who you were fighting, exactly," she explained reluctantly. "I missed the first part of the fight and I never got close enough to hear what all was said later, but I think he was somehow related to the Senzouku Pirates, because they have some sort of thing going on with the hydras and ships have to pay them protection money or they get munched. So this guy in some sort of scale outfit was fighting you guys. Mostly Naruto-sama and Uchiha-sama, Cherri-sama and Karin-san kept distracting him, and Naruto and Uchiha, and pretty much all of the rest of the people watching by standing on the sides and yelling and flashing them at random. I think you were hurting Naruto's fighting more than anyone else but he didn't seem to mind. I wish my tits were still that perky," Kyoko said wistfully.

Sakura blushed lightly and covered her face with her hand. "I showed my breasts to how many people?" she asked faintly.

"I dunno, most of 'em?" Kyoko replied, puzzled.

Sakura groaned.

"And it didn't really seem like Naruto and Uchiha were fighting the guy so much as they were fighting each other over who got to fight the guy. It was all very confusing, everyone was moving so fast I couldn't keep up." Her voice rose as she got more and more excited, really getting into her storytelling. "One moment there'd be this blur in the air, then you'd all be standing on the side of a freaking building insulting each other, then Uchiha-san called a lightning storm while Naruto peed in the bushes, and the guy called this big ass hydra out of the water and people were running and screaming, and then like ten thousand birds invisible birds came out of nowhere and there was this grinding noise like GRRRNNNNN FWOOP FWOOP BRRRZWOOO and the guy was all 'You killed my pet prepare to die!' and Naruto was too busy motorboating Cherri's tits to fight for like five minutes and then everyone ran out of sight. It was really really amazing!"

"Oh, so it was just the regular us versus a giant monster fight. No wonder we didn't remember it," Sasuke said, sounding disappointed.

Everyone stared at him.

Sasuke stared back. He blinked.

"Karin, am I still on drugs?" he asked.

"Yes," Karin replied, looking puzzled. They all were. Except maybe Naruto. Hard to tell with him.

"Oh. Hn."

"So we've been here a week getting into fights and drunken, drug fueled perversions the like of which you can't even legally WRITE about and annoying people and killing monsters, is that it?" Sakura asked.

"Truly, the stuff legends are made of. You're even better than your rep," Kyoko said, nodding.

"Thank you," Sakura said politely. "You can have my grilled sea monster. I'm going to be sick now." She paused. "Well, no, but I feel like I should be."

"Thanks!" Kyoko said, accepting the skewer and taking a big bite.

"Good, right?" Naruto said, still nibbling on his. "What's that spice, anyway? I don't recognize it."

"Saffron and tea!" the stall owner said proudly.

"Nice!"

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Authors Lie: Don't mind me, just indulging in another little side story. This one isn't related to the Lies series in any way shape form. This is sort of a future 'what if' fic set around five years in the future from just post the end of the Pain/Naruto fight, or thereabouts. Each of them remembers a little more or a little less, depending. I'll probably finish it next chapter, this will not be a long work. For one thing, the premise would wear thin mighty quick.

No, I haven't seen The Hangover, but I have seen Dude, Where's My Car. I've been wanting to do a fic where various characters wake up in a hotel room with a dead hooker with half a line of coke on her ass for a while now. It's good to have goals.


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura twitched her skirt a little and wished it was longer. It was actually longer than the pocketed skirt she remembered wearing, and didn't have the slits in the side, but back then she wore spandex shorts underneath. There were exactly one pair of spandex shorts on the rack of clothes Naruto had wheeled back into the bedroom, and Karin had nabbed them. Sakura's choice of underwear had been boxers…

Or a high rise G-string.

It was marginally better than just going commando. Marginally. On one hand, it kept people from actually seeing her… cherries… which was a plus in her book, but on the other hand, apparently she'd already shown her cherries to the entire world and now she had a string in her asscrack.

The pros and cons of forcefully stealing Karin's shorts kept flitting through her mind.

At least the boys looked good. Sasuke was in dark slacks and a button up shirt that fit him like a glove. With black shoes and the top two buttons undone, it practically screamed professional on a day off. Those top two undone buttons especially seemed to hint at possibilities, and put her in mind of taking it off, possibly with her tongue. From the looks other women gave him seemed to have a similar effect on them as well.

Naruto, though, had gone for a more formal look with some sort of suit that mixed smooth black cloth with orange and red trim, and had to be custom tailored, because only Naruto would think orange was an appropriate accent color for a fancy suit. The hell of it was, it really did look good. Naruto being taller and heavier and more adult and frankly just more manly coupled with the custom suit to make him look like some sort of badass. It would be easy to imagine him in that suit equally at home at a corporate meeting, staring down a thug on the street, or lounging in the VIP room at an upscale house of entertainment.

She'd never really thought of Naruto as sexy, not even when he'd gotten back from his training trip, and especially not being 'cool' like Sasuke, but just watching him prowl around like a playful tiger made her breath hitch and things low in her body clench up. Flashes of his naked body from that morning kept springing to her mind, and she couldn't help but wonder what last night must have been like, watching him plow Karin from behind from such an intimate view underneath, despite the blush it brought to her cheeks.

Of course, she lingered longest on the question of what Sasuke had felt like on her…

Sakura was roused from her pressing questions by Naruto's exclamation.

"Oh wooooow, is that a stuffed tengu?" He pointed in sheer amazement at a human sized figure with a birdlike head propped up outside of a store. It had black feathers on its wings, arms, and head, and the head itself was that of a crow, but sized for a human.

"That has to be fake," Karin replied. "No way did someone stuff a tengu."

"Let's checkitout!" Naruto said enthusiastically, pointing. "I bet that store has all kinds of neat things!"

"Naruto, we're looking for clues as to what caused us to lose our memories, not shopping. We don't need to stop in a curio shop. We've got to retrace our drunken steps," Sakura said patiently.

Naruto frowned, then grinned and pointed a finger at her. "Ahah! That means we definitely have to stop and look around! Because if we were drunk and came anywhere near here, this is DEFINITELY the kind of place I'd stop in and look around!"

Sakura found herself unable to argue with that logic, and so they entered the store.

"Whoooaaaa! Cool!" Naruto exclaimed as he tried to look at everything at once.

Sakura found it odd that Naruto could say exactly the same thing he would once have said, and yet it came out more like a man impressed by something new and different rather than an overly excitable child. His lack of hyperactive bouncing around might have had something to do with that.

The shop was absolutely stuffed full of random stuff from apparently all over the world. Figurines made from jade, porcelain, ivory, and stone, silk fans, a few swords that didn't look like anything she'd ever seen before, exotic plants in hanging pots, a tiny stuffed crocodile, a butterfly in amber, a few more stuffed birds and small mammals, and hundreds more items not easily identifiable.

Sakura's gaze lingered on a depressed looking monkey in a brass cage high atop one shelf. A small, hand lettered sign hung below it warning against putting fingers through the bars of the cage.

"Oooh, what's this thing?" Naruto asked, poking at a funny looking footstool.

"That's a saddle for a camel, honored customer Sir," replied a middle aged, bearded man that emerged from a back room with some haste. He walked with a strange shuffling gait, like he was afraid his shoes were going to fall off, and he wore long white robes with additional wraps on top. "If Sir does not have a camel, it makes a wonderful footstool or seat." He had a strong but understandable accent, as if he was a good student but hadn't been living in the area for very many years.

"Huh. It smells funny," Naruto said, wrinkling his nose.

"That would be the camel hair stuffing, customer Sir. A genuine article, a steal at only 1600 ryo, and my children go hungry, customer Sir!" He eyed Naruto with the predatory gaze of a salesman, not unlike the dead, hungry eyes of a shark.

Naruto was typically oblivious. "Nah, I don't want a funny smelling footstool."

The shopkeeper's gaze wandered to the other three, dismissing Karin as too obviously meek to the others, shying away from Sasuke's even colder, don't-mess-with-me eyes, and settled on Sakura.

Sakura may or may not have growled back.

"Ah, Sayida, you appear to have very discerning taste. Perhaps I could interest you in something? Some jeweled ivory combs for your lovely hair?" Without waiting for an answer, he turned and started rummaging around under a counter for something probably very expensive.

"No, I don't need a- oh my, those are lovely," Sakura admitted, then pressed her hands to her mouth in regret.

Scenting blood, the shopkeeper smiled and removed two pick combs carved from ivory and polished to a lustrous texture, then inlaid with mother of pearl and green jade. "Ai yi yi, Sayida, I knew when I saw you that here, here is a lovely women of means who desperately needs something befitting her status to keep her wonderful hair in check.

Sakura idly twirled a strand of her hair in her fingers and bit her lip. Her hair was just a bit longer than she liked, and WAS long enough to get in her eyes but not quite long enough to do up in a bun or behind her ears… Mutely, Sakura allowed him to push the lovely combs into her hands.

"Ai yi! A mirror! We must find a mirror for you!"

Sasuke ignored the proceedings, and Karin took Sakura's sudden shopping as tactic permission to look for something herself. After all, she could buy things, too! They'd each found personal wallets more or less stuffed with coins and bills as they were preparing to explore.

Naruto had continued his exploration, poking a finger in the mouth of the stuffed baby crocodile, then snatching it back and giggling when he tripped a spring mechanism and the jaws slammed shut. It was entirely too slow for someone with ninja reflexes, so he simply found it to be a charming toy. On one shelf he found a heavy, locked box with a thick glass top, and inside there was something brown and gnarled on a trio of pegs. It looked kinda gross, like a kid's hand, but hairy. The box had a price tag with a lot of zeros on it, and expensive meant interesting to Naruto despite the rather grim appearance. Of course, a locked box is no obstacle at all to a ninja…

"Hey, Beardy? What's with this thing?" he asked turning to where the shopkeeper was holding up a silver framed mirror for Sakura to fix her hair in a bun with the ivory combs and holding up the severed hand to show what he meant.

"Aiyah! That not supposed to be out of the box! That a very special and rare object, customer Sir! That a legendary magical monkey paw that grants wishes!" He hastily started trying to find a place where he could put the mirror down so it wouldn't fall and break.

"A monkey paw? That grants wishes?" Naruto asked dubiously. "What, like, any wish spoken aloud? And how many?"

"Please, customer Sir!" the shopkeeper begged, knocking over a mechanical clock as he sat the mirror down. "Do not make any wishes! That is a very hard thing for me to make! Very expensive!"

"Oh, you made it? Why didn't you wish for something?" Naruto asked, turning the dried monkey paw over in his hands and stroking the fur with his thumb. "And how many wishes, anyway? I've got a lot of money."

"Magic not work that way! I make for customer, customers pay me money, that all I wish for." He paused at the 'lot of money' comment. "It gives one wish for each finger, Sayid. When all fingers are curled up, no more wishes."

"What if I used a wish to wish for more wishes?" Naruto asked.

The shopkeeper cringed every time he said the word 'wish', half expecting him to inadvertently trigger the magic and waste a wish. "No, Sayid. Once a finger curls it cannot be pried open."

"Oh," Naruto said, disappointed. "That sucks. Why only one, though? If you can make them, you ought to make a bunch of them."

"Ai yi yi, I have materials only for the one. I must sell it and buy more materials. I still have monkey, though." He waved in the general direction of the monkey in the brass cage.

The monkey gave them a bleak look and didn't move, and they noticed for the first time that only one paw clutched at the bars of the cage while the other arm ended in a stump.

Sasuke ignored it. Karin adjusted her glasses.

"Huh," Naruto said. "So, about these wishes…"

"That poor monkey!" Sakura exclaimed, horrified. With lightning quick ninja speed, she crossed the distance and snatched the dried monkey paw from Naruto.

"I wish this paw was reattached to the monkey and healed completely!"

Instantly, the paw disappeared from her hand.

"Eeeek eeek eeek!" the monkey screeched in surprise as it suddenly found itself in possession of its missing paw.

"Uh oh," Karin said faintly. "This won't end well."

"Ai yi yi! Foolish customer! What have you done?" the shopkeeper cried in horror.

"Aww, Sakuraaaa…" Naruto whined. "Why'd you have to go and do a thing like that for? What does a monkey need with wishes? We could have used that to get our memories back!"

Sakura stamped her foot and looked defiant. "I don't care! What happened to that poor monkey was wrong! How would you like it if someone cut your hand off and tried to sell it while keeping you locked in a cage?"

"I'm not a monkey," Naruto replied reasonably.

The monkey's chittering continued as it inspected the returned hand. Four of the fingers seemed to be working fine, but one remain stubbornly curled from the wish Sakura had made. The chittering subsided abruptly. Everyone stared at the brass cage, waiting for something to happen.

The monkey looked down at its paw. The next finger curled, and at the same instant, the locked door to the cage sprang open. The monkey shrieked in surprise, but then started ook ooking happily to itself as it climbed out and sat on the shelf, squeezing in among the dusty relics.

"No! Bad monkey! Get back in your cage!" the shopkeeper cried. "Where is my net, ay yi yi…"

"I guess his greatest wish was to be free," Karin said slowly.

"See?" Naruto complained. "He wasted that wish on unlocking the cage, when he could have wished himself in a tropical resort or back in the jungle or wherever. Stupid monkey wasted a wish that could have been ours!"

The monkey chittered a little, then another finger curled. Instantly, a banana appeared in the monkeys other hand. Apparently expecting that, it bit the top of the peel off and started eating the magically delivered fruit. Despite the monkey's half starved and flea-bitten appearance, it ate slowly, as if savoring the banana.

"Well, I'd expect a monkey to wish for a banana…" Karin said slowly.

"Aww, dammit, another wasted wish. He could have had a lifetime of bananas, like, one would appear every time he scratched his ass or something. Sakuraaa," Naruto whined, "the dumb monkey is making dumb wishes, make him stop!"

About that time, the shopkeeper returned with a large cloth net on a long pole and started slowly walking towards the monkey, which was just finishing its banana.

"Nice monkey, don't move monkey…" the man coaxed.

The monkey glanced at him. Glanced down at the hand. Looked up at nothing in particular. Another finger curled.

The shopkeeper hesitated, but when apparently nothing happened, he started closing in for the capture once more.

"I guess he wished for something he couldn't have," Naruto said, disappointed.

The monkey turned its head slowly and fixed the shopkeeper with its gaze.

The man was suddenly engulfed in flames.

"Ay yi yi! I am on fire! Ahhhhhh!" the man screamed, flailing his burning robes frantically as he staggered back and forth, then fell and sizzled quietly on the floor, miraculously not setting any of the highly flammable items in his shop on fire in the process.

Sakura gulped.

The monkey turned and looked at Naruto.

"AHHHHHH! Hot hot hot!" Naruto cried, suddenly on fire. He frantically beat at his face and hair with his hands, even as the others, even Sasuke, slapped him all over, putting out the fire. Fortunately, Naruto was a great deal more fireproof than the shopkeeper, or at least more flame resistant. He was soon barely smoldering.

"Oh look. The monkey's third wish was for the ability to set people on fire with his mind," Sasuke said blandly. "Sakura, are you getting the feeling yet that perhaps you didn't think your little act of compassion all the way through?"

"Oookkak!" the monkey exclaimed happily. "Eeek eeek oook ook aaak…" It looked down at its fingers. Four of them were curled, and only the thumb remained, which it waggled back and forth thoughtfully. Scratched its nose. Looked at the hand again.

The last finger, the thumb, curled in, and the monkey was making a tiny simian fist.

Then, slowly, the monkey opened its hand again, stretching the fingers flat, then opening and closing them into a fist several times, popping the knuckles audibly.

Then, with all of its fingers extended, the monkey slowly curled its index finger, the first one that had curled in response to Sakura's wish for the monkey to have its paw back.

Two female monkeys of the same species suddenly appeared on the shelf below it, each bearing silver platters loaded down with an assortment of fresh fruit.

"I thought we couldn't wish for more wishes?" Naruto protested.

"He only said that we couldn't uncurl the fingers again," Sakura said slowly. "I guess since it's his paw, and it's alive again, he… can…"

"Oooooook eeek," the monkey said slowly. It extended the curled finger again and used the hand to reach down and pick a single grape off the patter, which it popped in its mouth.

The monkey's eyes gleamed with possibilities.

"AAAAAHHH hot hot hot!" Naruto cried, on fire again. He was quickly put out once more.

"Ah, guys, I think we should be going now," Karin said nervously. "The monkey clearly has things to do. We wouldn't want to… intrude."

Slowly, the four of them edged backwards out of the shop to the sound of contemplative simian chatter.

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"Well, now that you've given an angry, bitter monkey the keys to the universe, what do you want to do for an encore?" Karin asked sharply as they all walked down the street away from the curio shop, which had apparently just turned into a large tree.

"I'm kinda thirsty, actually," Sakura admitted, not looking behind her. "Considering how much alcohol we drank last night, I know I should be drinking water right now, but all I want is a pina colada."

"Aged single malt whiskey, for me," Naruto chimed in. People were staring at them. It felt good.

"…sake," Sasuke grudgingly admitted. He glared back at the people who stared at him. The men suddenly found things to do elsewhere, and the women mostly looked hot and bothered. From a distance, Sasuke's 'I hate you all' expression was remarkably similar to what someone who didn't know him might describe as 'smoldering'.

"And I'll have anything with a four word name and an umbrella," Karin finished, having finally put the nagging feeling into words.

"We really are alcoholics," Sakura said despairingly. "I always said I'd never be like Tsunade and yet here I am, desperate for a drink."

"Oh, come on Sakura, you're nothing like Baachan," Naruto replied cheerfully, unfortunately staring down and to the side at her tits.

Sakura's eyebrow twitched. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"You're young and gorgeous, and she's really a wrinkly old hag under a jutsu. It's an awesome jutsu, but you're all real, and that's hot."

Sakura blushed and moved closer to him, and Naruto idly gathered her under one arm and gave her a peck on the side of the neck.

"Aww," Karin said with a sigh.

"…" Sasuke was in too much shock to say anything.

Naruto's eyes widened as it finally hit him what he'd just done.

"…what …what just happened?" Sakura asked faintly.

"I'm not sure, but it was totally sweet," Naruto said finally, not releasing her from his one armed grasp. "It just felt so natural, words just came like they were there on my tongue just waiting to be said…"

Sasuke grunted and looked thoughtful.

Karin moved closer to him to see if he had an automatic reflex that involved hugging her.

"You're in my space," he said absently, not even looking at her.

Karin sighed and stepped away. It figured.

"Aww, poor Karin-chan. Is Sasuke being a dick again?" Naruto's arm reached out and pulled her close.

Karin smiled. "Well, that's a reflex that I could get used to."

"I think that's it, actually," Sakura said slowly.

"Yes," Sasuke said, having just came to the same conclusion.

"Eh?" Naruto asked, having been momentarily blissed out by having a cute girl under each arm.

Sasuke just grunted, and Naruto stuck his tongue out at him.

Since Sasuke obviously wasn't going to elaborate, Sakura continued.

"I believe that, despite our lack of recent memories, our personalities have actually changed in the years we don't remember. Like there is a whole host of automatic responses ingrained into our bodies that we don't have to think about, and are not reliant on our missing memories."

"But it seems like we're really different," Karin protested. "Can personalities really change that much in just a few years?"

"No, no, it makes sense," Naruto admitted. "I mean, look what happened to all of us right after we made genin. I know we had a lot of things going on, but in like three or four years everything changed. And since it appears that we didn't exactly settle down…"

"We're almost strangers to ourselves now," Sakura finished. "The intellectual side of me wants to just scream in horror, beat Naruto into a bloody pulp for having a hand on my ass right now, and start researching how to get my memories back. But these new instincts I have are apparently telling me that I should get drunk and make him go down on me instead."

"We should negotiate the terms of your surrender to your instincts at the nearest bar," Naruto said brightly. "After all, since that's apparently all we've been doing lately, we're bound to find a clue there." His hand slid beneath the waistband of her skirt and toyed with her thong.

"Naruto, you stupid pervert! Lead the way!" Sakura replied angrily, then looked confused again.

"Ladies, and step!" Naruto complied cheerfully, guiding the two girls into a simultaneous walk.

_Damn it feels good to be a pimp_, Naruto thought happily. _It's been a long journey to this moment, and it was tooooootally worth it._

Sasuke followed from behind, theoretically aloof from it all, though he did grunt once in amusement as Naruto spelled out 'I know where you're looking' in code with repeated flips of Sakura's skirt.

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A half hour later, their good mood had largely evaporated. Naruto finally did something that made Sakura jump and squeal, Sakura punched Naruto hard enough to send him through THREE buildings, making Karin 'EEEK!' and hide behind Sasuke, and Sasuke reflexively used Tsukiyomi to put a man in a hot, dry desert with nothing to drink for seventy two hours.

The cause of the stress was-

The nine bars they'd managed to find in the area were either closed or actively hostile.

Bar one: "Like, sorry, scary dudes and dudettes. You drank us out the day before yesterday, we haven't got any more booze, man." At least he'd been laid back about being slightly put out.

Bar two: "No no no! We closed! You drink all liquor! You very bad man! You go now!" And threatened them with a push broom.

Bar three: "Oi! Don't be comin' roun heah, you bastids alreddy drank all da lickah!" That had been fine, but then Sakura had said something uncomplimentary and the bartender may or may not have insulted her, it was hard to tell, and Sasuke had nailed him with the sharingan.

Bar four: "Aiyah! The wrecker of bars returns! Here, it last bottle of special family heirloom! You take! No hurt family!"

"Shouldn't we feel bad about taking that guy's family heirloom booze?" Naruto asked, cracking the seal on the bottle of plum wine.

"We paid him, now pass it down," Sasuke replied.

Bar five: "Ahhhhhgh! You scrawny bastards drank me family whiskeh! That cask has been passed down from father to son in Clan McHebereke for seven hundred years! I'll have your heads for that!"

And they had been chased down the street by a large, angry bearded man wearing a plaid skirt and wielding an enormous broad bladed straight sword.

"Huh, now that guy, we should have felt bad about drinking his booze," Naruto muttered once they'd gotten away by hopping over a row of buildings.

"Yeah, since we already drank it, we didn't have it for today," Karin agreed.

Bar six: "I reckon you fellers done drank ma stock plum out. You best be moseying."

"I don't know how to mosey," Naruto admitted sheepishly.

"Well, I reckon you better learn fast," the grizzled man in a short brim hat advised. And then a section of the front of his bar exploded outwards, sending wood splinters and high velocity lead pellets at the group.

They all ducked quickly, letting the projectiles pass harmlessly overhead.

"Hey, that wasn't very nice," Karin complained.

"Ah ain't had a drink in mah own bar in four days!" the man hollered back. "You four are the Devil!"

"Uh, like, our collective evil is the same as that of a devil, or are we each a devil? I'm confused," Naruto said thoughtfully.

"Maybe we're all mini devils and when combined we actually form the Prince of Hell," Karin offered.

"You mean like, 'Drunken Devil Power Combine, form of SATAN HIMSELF!'?" Naruto asked, yelling the last part.

"Ah hate yall," the man replied. "And Ah might not be able ta shoot you, but I'mma try anyway," he added, reloading.

"Alright, alright, we're leaving…" Sakura said, and shoved the others out the door.

"What is this place?" Sasuke asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. "The City of Bar Cliches?"

They all paused to stare down the road where a man who was screaming and on fire ran across the street and disappeared into an alley.

"Well, I was right about one thing, we've definitely been to these places. And they remember us, too!" Naruto said cheerfully.

"But now we can't get a drink anywhere!" Sakura complained. "I'm starting to understand why we adopted a nomadic lifestyle."

"Excuse me, Naruto-sama? Did I hear you were looking for a drink?" asked a smiling, unassuming little man in a robe as he appeared at their side, holding a large glass of some sort of murky liquid. "Here, have this. I made it especially for you!"

Naruto accepted the glass. "Hey, thanks Squirrelly guy! I've been getting pretty thirsty!"

The man bowed and disappeared in a cloud of smoke, though none of them present had any trouble at all following his shunshin to the top of a nearby building and away.

Naruto took a big drink of the suspicious looking liquid. Immediately, his pupils shrank to the size of pinholes, then dilated to the extreme, then shrank again, then started wobbling and turned red. He shook a maraca in his free hand, and also one in his third hand, which may or may not have actually been an elephant's trunk.

"They call me Cuban Pete! I'm the king of the rumba beat!" he sang spontaneously, shaking his hips and the maracas in time with music that sprang up out of nowhere. "When I play my maracas I go chick chicky boom chick chicky boom," he added as he put a series of hip sways into his dance, which everyone else swayed along with.

Naruto took another drink, sinful and redolent with the aromas of fermented curare and psilocybin mushroom liquor, then started dancing down the road, followed by his staring but dancing along friends.

"Yes sir I'm Cuban Pete! I'm the craze of my native street, when I start to dance everything goes chick chicky boom chick chicky boom…" he sang, bumping and grinding and shaking his maracas. Other people started joining in the parade and the world itself swayed in and out with his sudden hip thrusts.

He tossed back the last of the drink and tossed the glass to one side, where it punched though six walls and narrowly missed decapitating a startled old man.

"Naruto!" Sakura called as she jumped forward to restrain him, but he just swept her up into a short tango.

"The senoritas they sing-a and then they swing-a their lumbaro," he said, effortlessly waltzing under a furious haymaker from the enraged woman. "It's very nice!" he assured Karin, bending over backwards and looking at her upside down from below, then slipped past another punch by Sakura and spun her into a twirl, "So full of spice!"

Naruto grabbed her close and dipped her low, holding her there for a moment. "And when they dance and then they bring a happy ring they're a care-o… singing a song! All day long!" He dropped her without another thought and twirled Karin into his grasp, getting a happy giggle.

Suddenly there was more of him, grabbing Sakura, grabbing Sasuke, grabbing random people off the street into a dance that could only be performed by someone with a ninja's roof hopping jumps and the ability to stick to walls with chakra.

"Soooo if you like the beat! Take a lesson from Cuban Pete! And I'll teach you to chick chicky boom chick chicky boom chick chicky boom!" The music rose and fell.

Suddenly the entire lineup of Akatsuki was there, in their red cloud cloaks and huge sombreros, all with maracas and strangely limp, noodly arms shaking maracas.

"He's a really modest guy," Itachi started singing in a high falsetto, "even though he's the hottest guy… in Havana-"

"In Havana!" the other Akatsuki chimed in in falsettos, except Konan who, for some reason, sounded remarkably like Dr. Girlfriend.

Dozens of Naruto's disappeared and he left Karin and Sakura clinging to each other and giggling as they made mooneyes at him, instead snatching Konan's hand and somehow pulling her out of her Akatsuki robe so that she stood with him dressed in a slinky, glittery silver backless dress with slits up the side to her waist and diamond studded high heels.

"Si senorita I _know_ that you will like the chicky boom chick," he said, tangoing with her across a ballroom floor. "It's very nice!"

"So full of spice!" his friends and Akatsuki cheered enthusiastically, and Naruto casually whipped Konan to the side into the orchestra with a crash of instruments as an even hotter chick showed up.

Pain, in that hot female body that they'd brought back, sauntered out from his cloak and sombrero to stand in a little black dress, all her piercing gleaming like polished jet in the disco lights.

"I place my hand-a on your hip," Naruto said, doing just that as he slinked up to Pain-ko from behind, who turned her head and looked demurely seductive as he crooned into her ear, "and if you give me your hand we will try-" instead of giving him her hand Pain-ko slid it down the waistband of his pants, "Ai yi yi!"

Naruto spun away, accepting a huge, fruity drink spiked with umbrellas and another pair of maracas for his crab claw hands. "So if you like the beat! Take a lesson from Cuban Pete! And I'll teach you to chick chicky boom chick chicky boom chick chicky boom dattebayo!"

"What the hell are you mumbling about?" Sakura asked him curiously.

Naruto looked around. They were in a new bar, one that apparently still had booze, at least for a little while, since he really did have a tall fruity drink in his hand. It was dimly lit, though there was track lighting, currently dark, over a fighting ring set into a large open space in the middle of the room. Sasuke and Karin were both drinking and eyeing him dubiously.

"Your eyes are pretty dilated. Are you okay?" Sakura asked.

"Sakura, I've never been better," Naruto assured her, navigating the many dangerous spikes of decorative umbrellas to take a drink with apparently the ease of long practice.

"Well, okay…"

Naruto smiled and tapped his foot to music only he could hear.

"Chick chicky boom chick chicky boom dattebayo…."

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Author's notes: Man, I forgot how much fun I was having with this when I thought I'd have to delete it and stopped working on it. Next chapter might be a while, I'm working more on People Lie at the moment.


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